In the present environment of heightened concern over criminal and terrorist activities, those knowledgeable in the art of video surveillance technology have rapidly recognized the limitations of current systems, particularly in the face of a widespread threat environment where events may be rare but highly catastrophic. In addition, those skilled in the art also recognize the value of surveillance-derived information for business purposes, for example, arrival-departure times; retail browsing activities; or traffic patterns.
Present video surveillance systems have limited abilities to respond to current and foreseeable needs. In particular, present video surveillance systems are often an amalgam of video surveillance assets with little flexibility in implementation and a strong resistance to centralized, remote management. The lack of flexibility in implementation is a consequence of the heretofore ad-hoc approach to construction of video surveillance systems. In the prior art, the approach has been to integrate relatively low-tech surveillance assets, for example, video cameras, in “custom” surveillance suites tailored to a particular threat environment. This approach may result in somewhat sophisticated surveillance capabilities, but important and crucial limitations become apparent as soon as a government or large corporation tries to spawn an existing security solution to numerous sites with diverse and sometimes conflicting security concerns.
As a result, the government or corporation is often faced with a start-from-scratch situation where a new and unique surveillance system has to be constructed for each installation where surveillance capability is desired. Due to the relatively limited number security professionals and the long time line associated with implementation of custom video surveillance systems, the net result is that surveillance capability has to be rationed in the near to intermediate term, with the logical consequence that certain installations have to make due with limited or no video surveillance capability. Obviously, in the present increased threat environment, such delay can have tragic and even horrific consequences.
Another problem associated with current video surveillance systems is their resistance to centralized management. Since many existing video surveillance systems are ad-hoc in nature, they naturally suffer from a lack of commonality. This means that a government or large corporation seeking to implement a centralized and top-down approach to management of video surveillance systems is confronted by a collection of unique surveillance suites with, for example, differing control protocols; capabilities; and data formats each of which may be managed easily on-site, but, when taken together, are nearly impossible to manage as an entity from a remote locale.
Accordingly, those skilled in the art desire improvements to existing video surveillance technology. In particular, those skilled in the art desire building blocks (for example, video cameras) with a higher degree of inherent programmability. Such programmability would result in numerous improvements to the implementation time cycle. By providing a wide range of inherent capability subject to programming control, the need for time-consuming ad-hoc implementations would be greatly reduced. Instead, with such building blocks, security professionals can rapidly implement the rough outline of a video surveillance system, and then quickly refine the operation of the system through centralized programming control.
Additionally, those skilled in the art desire a set of common control protocols for controlling and managing the activities of a distributed video surveillance system. This is necessary for several reasons. First, since present video surveillance systems are often ad-hoc and unique, there is no known set of management protocols for managing a distributed video surveillance system comprised of highly programmable building blocks. Second, since the component elements of the surveillance system will be highly programmable and easily subject to centralized control, management protocols that take advantage of these features are required.